The Trouble with Tortilla Chips

There are some special problems that only large families deal with. For instance, the dearth of vehicles with enough seating when your family surpasses minivan capacity. Or the lack of adequate parking space for the few vehicles that do have enough seating. And don’t even get me started on the Rubik’s cube puzzle that is car seat logistics.

However, there are some even more specialized problems that big families deal with. Like tortilla chips.

We have tacos for dinner often. Classic homemade ground beef tacos are a family favorite although chicken tacos and carnitas make the list for crowd pleaser dinners as well. And they all go well with tortilla chips. While this probably doesn’t seem like a problem to most it’s nothing but trouble for us.

If we put the chips on the dinner table while we’re eating, the boys will pretty much only eat chips and the 22-month-old will only eat chips. Their appetite for any non-chip foods disappears when there are chips on the table. If you’re thinking you can keep an eye on the chips and make sure the kids don’t go chip crazy you’re fooling yourself. With the amount of movement, and number of spills, and frequency of kids getting up and moving around… Forget it. Maintaining an eye on the chips at the table doesn’t work.

I know what you’re thinking. Don’t put the chips on the table, duh. Problem solved, right? Well, aside from the dreadful inconvenience of not having chips on the table for responsible chip eaters like myself, if we leave the bag of chips on the counter in the kitchen there’s a new problem.

Recall the aforementioned activity and getting up and moving around at the table. A kid goes to get the milk, or a cup, or another taco, and with the chips not in the sightline of the table – boom, chips are being consumed cookie monster style in the kitchen. The chips can’t be out of sight.

How about keeping the chips in the pantry until after dinner has been eaten? So, obviously, this means I don’t get to enjoy delightful tortilla chips with my taco dinner so that really makes this plan the worst one yet. But, even if I deprive myself of the chips, it doesn’t solve the problem. Because an unopened bag of chips in our pantry is apparently mistaken for a punching bag repeatedly. No whole chip is safe. I’ve opened bags that were so pummeled I couldn’t tell if they were chips or the ingredients to make chips.

No, no. Leaving the chips in the pantry isn’t an option.

So this is why we end up having a bag of tortilla chips on the table with our tacos. And why it’s empty before the tacos are gone, usually before I get any. Which is the real trouble when it comes to tortilla chips. However it turns out there is a solution: buy an extra bag. Goodness knows we have room for it in the back of the 15 passenger van.